Monday, March 29, 2010

Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds Analysis

The Beatles, some could say, were the most commercially successful rock band of all times. Saught out from Liverpool, England in 1960, four men built their reputation through a new type of psychedelic rock/pop movement. Throughout theircareer, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry were just some of their early influences, whose songs they covered more often than any other artist's in performances. In their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band of 1967, the song, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was released. The Beatles exploit the use of imagery providentially throughout the song.
The first verse starts with the line, "Picture yourself on a boat in a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies." Here, Lennon and McCartney are actually telling the listeners to imagine what they are seeing. The Beatles actually allude to the definition of imagery here. The third line, that starts off with the lyrics, "Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly a girl with kaleidoscope eyes," tells you not only what you see, but what you hear as well. This depiction of sound reveals The Beatles' use of a variety of imagery.
Some of the lyrics The Beatles sing arn't quite as easy to picture like the rest. As the song continues, some of the lyrics make it seem that Lennon and McCartney try too hard to portray imagery. When listening to the song, at some points you don't necessarilly know what to think of the lyrics. The line, "With plasticine porters with looking glass ties suddenly someone is there at the turnstile," has the potential to create a cluster of nonsense images that do not make sense.

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